Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday March 09, 2011 @07:30PM
from the rest-in-peace dept.

angry tapir writes "A US House of Representatives subcommittee has voted in favor of a resolution to throw out the US Federal Communications Commission's recently adopted net neutrality rules. The communications subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 15-8 along party lines for a resolution of disapproval that would overturn the FCC's rules."

you fools gave your houses to the right wing party. right wing parties anywhere around the world, always support corporations over people.

it doesnt matter what your reasons or excuses for voting for a right wing party. you may even be quite right and correct in your reasons. BUT, a right wing party will always support corporations over people, in every way they can. even their acts which appear pro-people, will end up being pro-corp in the long run.

Take a quick look at the campaign finances of President Obama and see if you can still make this comment with a straight face. He raised more than three times as much money as Senator McCain in 2008, including rather large contributions from: Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Google, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Time Warner, General Electric, Morgan Stanley, and IBM. Granted I wouldn't call some of these new companies the 'Old Guard' but there are plenty on that list that fit the bill.

There's a difference between priority of different protocol routing and giving Google more bandwith than Yahoo! Search, or MySpace more than Facebook up till the point that you can't realy access Facebook anymore at the speed of 28k, forcing you to use MySpace.

I can tell you are realy... realy stupid or just plain ignorant.

Of course you give VoIP a bigger priority than newsgroups _IF_ you don't advertise your newsgroups to run at the speed of light, in order to not drop calls, but it's not about VoIP; it's

Left wing = For the PeopleRight wing = For the AristocracyOriginally the left wing were the supporters of the French Republic and the right wing were the supporters of the French Monarchy. Just like in the States the Conservatives (Tories) were for the Monarchy including after the Revolution appointing George Washington King and the Liberals were for a Constitutional Republic.Now the right are for the established new aristocracy, namely corporations and the left are for the common person.Both American political parties seem to be for corporations before people so both are right wing.

Which doesn't really describe the US very well. The vast majority of voters are not pro-corporation. The Tea Party movement itself would never describe itself that way, they're very much pro-citizen. The party leadership may use corporate funding but that does not make the party's platform right wing. In other words, if the voters are left leaning and they vote into power someone who's right leaning, this does not make the original voters right wing.

The real split here in the US is bigger government versus smaller government. The old French model doesn't apply here, since both left and right wing were in favor of strong governments they just had different ideas about who the leaders of the strong government should be.

Of course the old ideas don't die out very easily. Thus the complaint from US conservatives that liberals are "elitists", aka aristocratic.

Nobody is pro-corporations anywhere. Being pro-corporations is bad when you are asking for votes from people.

So if you have to help your friends/overlords who want their corporations to give them HUGE profits, you need to lie to the people and tell them that you help corporations only as a way to help the people... in the lines of "if the corporations can make you work unpaid overtime then they will get more benefits from you and then they will have more money to pay you more/hire more people". Or "if the c

Actually it would make for a statement that is accurate. His entire point is that American politicians and rhetoric are shifted far to the right relative to much of the western world overall.

But he didn't say that. He made an absolute statement. Further, I find that a lot of statements about left versus right seem to be based on feeling rather than fact and in near complete ignorance of the tribulations and constraints that the politician faced. For example, someone might claim Obama is right wing because he triangulated to catch the center or didn't try to implement a single payer health care system. They didn't ask what a left wing politician, who wasn't a total waste of oxygen, would look like in context. Answer is that they probably wouldn't do anything differently.

My view is that Obama would be a very left wing politician in an European country. But he's not in such a country so he can't act that way and get elected.

As I see it, back in the 17th through 19th centuries, immigration to North America generated an ideological split that has lasted to this day between the US, my home country and Europe. Partly, it was that the more adventurous and criminal-minded ended up in the US and partly that the revolution that formed the US pretty much worked right the first time aside from notable, but temporary problems. We had the early failure of the Articles of Confederacy which was resolved within a decade with the current federation. And there was the conflict over slavery and North/South economic competition which ended with the "Late Unpleasantness". Since the end of the US Civil War, the US has been remarkably unified with a flexible society and democracy unlike those in most other countries. We didn't have to go through half a dozen republics.

So it is with some bemusement that I consider the statements of many Europeans who might have a culture going back millennia, but a government going back at best half a century, perhaps even a mere 20 years in the case of the Eastern Bloc countries. So where does this great political wisdom come from?

Wouldn't a European roll their eyes if am American were to boast about the 150 year old outhouse that his town has? How then are US citizens to take the similarly provincial claims of people from Europe who boast of their governments (particularly such things as services and cost of governance) given the extreme youthfulness of most of the governments in question? Sure, if you're from Switzerland or England, you can back that boast with some of the oldest governments in the world. But France? Germany? Italy? Spain? Greece? etc. There are a lot of braggarts who back young, untested governments.

Couldn't disagree more. Neither party is in favor of freedom. The far right wishes for less taxes, and more freedom for business interests which in turn limit our personal freedom. The far left wishes for more control over businesses, limiting the freedom of those who run them and by proxy limiting our freedom for self-sufficiency.

It's funny you bring up China. The right wing is selling us out to China via enabling corporate exodus through tax loopholes and labor arbitrage. The left is selling us out to Chi

Socialism is economic and political device. We have a population that's huge, larger than say, Sweden-- a country that is unabashedly socialist. Spending money to help those in need isn't socialism. Retirement money isn't socialism. Medicare isn't socialism. Medicaid isn't socialism.

You don't understand what socialism means. Nor do we spend more on social programs than the entire budget of any country on earth. Your arguments don't hold water, entirely, and in certainty.

Aren't those figures completely meaningless since you are talking absolutes, not 'per capita'? Of course you spend more on social programs than any other country on earth: with over 300 million people you have ~by far~ the largest population of any developed country, and the largest economy.

There is also the matter of actual net benefit or result for that expenditure. You may spend more on social programs, but are they actually as effective as elsewhere? How efficient are your social programs? Does that inc

The US Republican party is a mash up of very different and unrelated interest groups. People in favor of less gun controls don't necessarily have anything in common with people hoping to restrict abortion rights, who don't necessarily have anything in common with big business. On the other hand the Democratic part is just as much a mash-up. In other countries these would be coalitions of smaller parties.

Traditionally Republicans have been more prone to support big business while Democrats are more behold

Traditionally Republicans have been more prone to support big business while Democrats are more beholden to labor unions.

One other important part of this equation: After the 1980 election, due in no small part to Ronald Reagan, labor unions were becoming smaller and weaker and poorer. The Democrats realized that if the labor unions fell, and they were still depending on labor unions for their financing, they would become irrelevant.

Now, they could have taken a stand on the side of organized labor, helped force laws that would make it possible for unions to grow again, and help convince workers that unions were their best chan

No, the right wing are the ones to watch for. They're the conservatives, meaning they're taking care of the old guard. The left wing are in liberals, they're in favor of change, so they're not as concerned with making sure the ones with family money keep it.

Bear in mind of course that anywhere else in the civilised world the US Democratic Party would be regarded as ultra-right religio-fascists. They're only "left wing" to Americans.

You should not have been modded informative, since you're flat wrong. It is the "left wing" like Obama, Pelosi, and Reid who are bending over backwards to protect the "old guard" of record companies and hollywood from Downloaders and new Internet competition (like hulu). They've now made it crime even to search torrent sites (the FBI will suppeona your ISP records and investigate anybody they find suspicious). The left-wing government has also send-up a 1-800 number (advertised in walmart and on radio/tv), so you can report anyone you suspect of copying.

Looks like the left wingers are as "sold out" to corporations as the right wing. Oh and it's also a mistake to think "conservative" means fear of change. I am a conservative, but I think we should legalize marijuana, make same-sex or multi-partner sex legal, and break-up the internet monopolies (Comcast, Verizon) to replace them with true competition. That's a heck of a lot of change!

What we DO want is less nanny state. We don't think D.C. is qualified to tell us what lightbulbs to buy, where to send us to school, what minimum size our oranges should be (an idea imported from the EU), and so on. We prefer to make those choices ourselves.

contradiction exists only in your mind that perceives world in black and white, democrat and republican colors.

Libertarians are classical liberals - imagine that. They are pro-freedom, both economic and social. Economic freedom is often associated with conservatives but social one is labeled liberal/progressive. If anything, libertarians are consistent which can't be said about everybody else.

Sure, it's too bad that business, particularly for-profit corporations, has too much power. But they at least have an interest in society and its functioning

Seriously?
Corporations only care about how much money they can get from anyone who isn't them.
The only function of society they are interested in is it's ability to supply them with customers with money who can be easily persuaded to part with it.
A well functioning society tends to have better educated people who can manage some amount of critical thinking.

The only function of society they are interested in is it's ability to supply them with customers with money who can be easily persuaded to part with it.

This sentence says a lot. They need money and a market with rules that lets them trade without being robbed or scammed. They need customers with that money. They need to provide something of value (which in turn may require skilled employees and other implications) to that their customers will part with that money. In other words, the interests of this hypothetical business coincide in a large number of ways with a healthy society. And all that implied from one sentence.

So what do you want? All I can tell is that you want "change". Well, you get it in spades with an active, competitive economy. But that requires a healthy business environment.

you fools gave your houses to the right wing party. right wing parties anywhere around the world, always support corporations over people.

We didn't give the government to them - at least not in the 2010 election cycle. Rather several decades (or more) ago we happily sold them to them. The only difference is that now the "two" parties are openly showing that there is virtually nothing different between them. We have a (theoretically) non-right-wing president who is continuing every last executive decision of his right-wing predecessor. Meanwhile congress is doing the same thing they did two years ago, which is what they did two years befo

Did you see where the summary said, "voted 15-8 along party lines"? How does that support your thesis that every politician comes from the same party?

Every politician comes from the same party, but they have to appear to fight. Jets fans and Patriots fans will both agree that Soccer is for pansies, but if a Jets fan knows a Patriots fan is talking smack about Soccer, the Jets fan will pretend to support the lesser-known Futball.

Because every time Democrats do something bad, it's "both parties are equally corrupt." Every time the Repubs pull a fast one, it's "only the Right are corrupt." This is a remarkably consistent rule that you see around here all the time. It's being subverted by a previous poster and it evidently is causing minds to explode.

His point was not that they have different party names, but that their policies are all but indistinguishable. Which is how it looks to me, too.

As a New Zealander, I have to say that the Democrats are more right wing than our current ruling right wing party. You have nothing as left as our left wing Labour party, who are not especially leftist, by NZ or world standards. I'm not sure I that most Americans appreciate just how right wing, conservative, pretty, ill-educated, reactionary, selfish, jingoistic, partisan, anti-intellectual, anti-science and anti-reason US politics appears from the external point of view. I look to politics in the UK, Australia, France, Germany. I understand what's going on there, it looks similar to what's going on here. I look at US politics and I'm thinking "What the.,..."

I really don't understand how a country that purports to be a democracy has allowed its political discourse to be so railroaded into one tiny spectrum of ideas. You have two parties which are largely indistinguishable. You change the name of the party in charge, but the ideas don't change. You guys really need to ditch first past the post elections - most of the rest of the world has already figured this out.

I'm not sure I that most Americans appreciate just how right wing, conservative, pretty, ill-educated, reactionary, selfish, jingoistic, partisan, anti-intellectual, anti-science and anti-reason US politics appears from the external point of view.

From your external point of view, or from the point of view that's been sold to you by your own media and politicians? I'm sure it's pleasing to imagine that you hold some privileged frame of reference, but maybe it's possible that the people telling you these things are telling you the things you want to hear, and the things they want you to believe.

I'm not sure I that most Americans appreciate just how right wing, conservative, pretty, ill-educated, reactionary, selfish, jingoistic, partisan, anti-intellectual, anti-science and anti-reason US politics appears from the external point of view.

From your external point of view, or from the point of view that's been sold to you by your own media and politicians? I'm sure it's pleasing to imagine that you hold some privileged frame of reference, but maybe it's possible that the people telling you these things are telling you the things you want to hear, and the things they want you to believe.

Unless you are looking at us from his point of view, you have no means by which to criticize his point of view. And as a matter of fact, most of what he says is true, something you'd realize if you looked at the U.S. system objectively. Our politicians ARE all right-wing. That's the only way that abortion of a "health care" plan could possibly have been passed last year. You know, the one that funnels billions of taxpayer dollars to the insurance companies? And the fact that all politicians in both parties will only ever talk about cutting taxes, never about the need with our huge deficits to, oh I dunno, INCREASE income to pay for things? Or how it's impossible to get elected in this country if you are an atheist or agnostic? And how those in both parties are all too eager to cut spending on education. Or how our "liberal" president is perpetuating the abomination that is Guantanamo? Or how no politician will get rid of the "Under God" clause in the Pledge of Allegiance (or even get rid of the Pledge at all)?

A true "liberal" would fix at one or more of the above, and we haven't had anything resembling a liberal in the White House since Carter. And he has somehow been demonized as "the worst president ever" when the evidence (if anyone bothered learning it) clearly says otherwise. So don't even try to claim we Americans aren't anti-intellectual or any of the other things claimed above. We're guilty of all of it.

I can't speak for the GP, but as a Canadian I agree with the GP. My source(s) of information:

- I read news from sources in the Canada, the US, UK, and Germany. Somehow they all seem to make some level of sense, except for the American version.

- first hand opinions expressed by Americans on online fora. To name an example, I don't think you'd get a significant number of people from any other western country to have a Democracy vs Republic debate along the lines of what just happened in the parallel Utah thread. Sometimes I have to resign to just look in awe about the level of collective brainwashing that seems to be going on in the US.

Ummm, no, not from my external point of view nor a view "sold" to me by "your own media and politicans". For a start, New Zealand is too small to produce all our own media for world stories, so it sources media from all over the world - BBC, CNN, Al Jazera et al. But personally, I don't watch a lot of TV news - I compare sources online and see what the US channels are putting out from their own feeds directly. It's mainly Fox & Glenn Beck that gives me an insight into how warped America has become. So if you want to blame the media for my point of view - blame your own. When I was revolted at Tea Party members hurling abuse at Muslim Americans in Orange County, that was entirely brought to me by YOUR media. MY media didn't cover it at all.

Furthermore, my point of view is not external. I have been to America before - admittedly, just the south, mainly Birmingham, for work and even then, that was quite a few years back. I have also lived with Americans before and seen and discussed their viewpoints and heard their comments on the difference between American politics and the rest of the western world's politics. In fact, one of the really interesting comments I got was from a lovely Bostonian girl who said the difference between democracy in the US and in NZ was that in the US, everyone was free to make all the money they wanted (regardless of whether they had any actual ability or chance to do so) whereas in NZ, it was more of a democracy of opportunity, where everyone (relative to the US) had the opportunity to succeed.

You say "I'm sure it's pleasing to imagine that you hold some privileged frame of reference". Well, I'm sure it pleases you to denigrate my point of view by imagining motives for me... but I wasn't claiming a privileged frame of reference, I was claiming that politics in the rest of the western world makes sense to me. I know, having talked to many other Australians, British, French and German people that we all share broadly similar views on how democracy should work and we all pretty much think American politics is mad. My claim wasn't that my point of view was right (although, knock that strawman over if it makes you feel better) but that represents a very common western view of American politics.

You perhaps need to re-read what I wrote since you seem to have misunderstood it.

I didn't say that everyone else in the western world was right and America is all wrong. What I said was that I don't think American's understand how foreign and odd American politics appears to others in the western world.

I know that the US has a Communist party. It also has Green party, as most countries do. But, because you run First Past the Post elections, either of those left wing parties getting a significant number o

Two competing parties and almost perfect "market efficiency", in that polling is so sophisticated that the parties have almost perfect knowledge of the electorate. Hotelling's Law [wikipedia.org] says they they will end up being identical.

A corollary is that your vote is meaningless, since you have a choice between two sames. You cannot bring about change at the ballot box. The only ways to change things are:

Sway the electorate directly (advertising, preferably with lots of $$$, or grasroots), or

Hi. I live in Wisconsin. Maybe you've heard of the protests we've been having these last few weeks. Care to tell me how exactly the Republicans and Democrats are the same because it's pretty obvious here that they're not.

But, paradoxically, with the FPP voting system, a successful new party on one side of the political spectrum will give the result to the opposite side, as a result of splitting the vote on their own side of the political spectrum. This is how Bush got elected in the first place.

Without changing FPP, you will never break out of two party politics and your options will forever be few.

Indeed. The corporations have owned Washington for many decades now. Even back in the 1950's, Ike Eisenhower warned that America's military-industrial complex had become too strong. Now look where we are: America has a military budget that's larger than that of all other countries combined, yet at the same time a substantial number of Americans live below the poverty line.

Even worse, many of our laws have now been drafted by lobbyists -- a fact that some of our politicians have even been happy to admit. The lobbyists continue to play the politicians and the politicians continue to play the people for whom the latter continue to vote. It's a vicious cycle that's only made worse by the poor state of America's educational system, which has been deteriorating for many decades. The electorate has now largely been reduced to a mass of ignorant, overly-religious, flag-waving zombie-consumers whose only purpose seems to be in making the rich richer.

Unfortunately, I'm not certain that there is much reason to believe that America can get out of this rut, which is like an extreme experiment in unbridled free-market capitalism that has gone badly wrong. The problem is that its people have wished this upon themselves. In this way America are kind of like Afghanistan; a country to which we've tried to introduce democracy, but whose citizens do not recognize the value of it and are thus not willing to fight for it, i.e. a horse that has been led to horse to water, but will not drink. Americans, of the other hand, had their freedom, but then gave it away willingly to the corporations... and continue to do so. Like the poor Afghans, they don't understand that their usual behavior is not in their best interest either.

yet at the same time a substantial number of Americans live below the poverty line.

Note that since the USA defines the poverty line as a fraction of the median income, about the only way to prevent a substantial number of Americans living below the poverty line is to make sure that every American makes exactly the same income every year.

Unfortunately, I'm not certain that there is much reason to believe that America can get out of this rut, which is like an extreme experiment in unbridled free-market capitalism that has gone badly wrong.

- can you point out any unbridled free-market capitalism for me please, because I fail to see any, where the government is intersecting its power with the desires of the companies, which kills competition and goes directly AGAINST any unbridled free-market capitalism?

I wouldn't mode you down based on your rant, I would mode you down based on this lie.

Democrats - owned by Hollywood/RIAA/MPAA
Republicans - owned by Big Oil/FOX/etc
Independents - get bought out by one or the other as soon as they're elected
Green - owned by smaller but equally extremist radical groups that wouldn't mind passing ridiculous legislation for their own interests
That drunk guy asleep at the park bench - We don't know his name or damn would he get our vote.

Re: Greens. You are misrepesenting greens. Those "narrow interests" that they support are basically the interests of functioning, diverse, healthy eco-systems worldwide and all of the inhabitants of those ecosystems. Yep. Pretty "special interest". Pretty radical. Definitely evil. Those bastards are supporting life over money. They are supporting sense not dollars. It's a good thing Guantanamo is still open.

The Earth Liberation Front sets fire to luxury homes. My neighbors up in Marin County claim to be allergic to wi-fi (therefore we should ban it in libraries, and also in the new PG&E smart-meters). But you're right. Those crazy people aren't the real radical evil special-interest groups of the green movement; it's all the companies who say they're "green" to get lots of government money and never have anything meaningful to show for it. Those jerks, and the corn ethanol lobby.

And that would be excellent if all the government did was ecological regulation, but it does a lot more than that. If the ostensible foundation of a political party is promoting the environment, what exactly is their social policy going to be? Or their defense policy? What about foreign policy? When you're talking about something as diverse as a national government, yes, a party that focuses on ecology is a narrow, special interest group.

What kinds of compromises in economic policy would such a party make in order to accomplish stated ecological goals? Historically, that answer has been quite a lot in the short term (which is typically what people are concerned about, right or wrong). When you're talking about "life over money" you certainly sound noble, but all money is for most people is a tangible, quantitative representation of work or effort. In that light, it might be more accurate to say the Green party emphasizes "quantity of life over quality of life". Then their platform becomes much less appealing. I'd like to "save the planet", but I wouldn't be happy if I had to give up my automobile, diverse diet, or electrical luxuries to do it.

I would have referred to a previous comment of mine but the difficulties of the/. systems interferes. anyway (although I do not dispute your observations):

Republicans = corporations + mainstream religionDemocrats = a bunch of disorganized do-gooders that each have their own concept of what is "just" and try to shove it down your throatLibertarians = every person is king/queen of their castle/bailiwick (it's OK if corporations are considered a "person" in this context)

Actually I think you are being over specific. These people cede their "free will" to whom they deem to be most powerful. That may be a talking head, a god, a politician, a rich person. I believe it comes from a lack of cynicism.

And left-wing parties put government over people. You sound like a high school kid who just discovered political parties.

There was no reason for "net neutrality." There was no example its proponents could point to that warranted its existence. Having politicians in Washington dictate how sysadmins are supposed to regulate their private network traffic is insane. Media lobbies would have a field day influencing politicians to "regulate" torrent traffic. The fact is that ISPs are private organizations, and yo

yes..and left wing parties support majority cliques at the expense of individuals.. how is that any better? net neutrality is not about choosing to get fucked..it's about which hole you want to be fucked in. either isps turn the internet into shitty ma-bell era pay-as-you-go services like cell networks, or you have government deciding what goes.. I'd like neither, but people like me who actually like freedom for individuals taking precedence over the blanket enforcement of irrational group-think policies,

>>even their acts which appear pro-people, will end up being pro-corp in the long run.

That's a very clever way of explaining away anything you don't like.

Not that the Republicans aren't crazy on this issue - because they are - but nonsense statements like the above allow you to continue your two minutes' hate even when they're entirely agreeing with you. It's the kind of nonsense position only a partisan hack could take.

So, for example, the Republicans ended the national speed limit. This appears to b

Funny. The FCC has the ability to regulate telecommunications companies, and that is what they are being asked to do. Not the Internet. THE CARRIERS. The greedy, manipulative pieces of shit that hate the internet for what it is.

They could have marked them as Tier II carriers, and didn't for reasons I cannot fathom.

And fuck what is with this long-ass timer between comments on Slashdot?

The argument goes that net neutrality stifles profits as telecom companies struggle to keep up with bandwidth demand and cannot impose much needed controls on their own network. Also, content providers lose out because they can't guarantee a high quality of service. Yes, the arguments are holier than Swiss cheese, but there it is...

Or, alternatively, folks could buck up a bit more cash so that we actually pay for all the shit we've been begging the government to give us.... (whether you want rich folks, poor folks, or in-between folks to buck up more cash is irrelevant, the point is, cutting away services is not the only way to reduce a deficit).

Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing. This retarded statement seems to be the now de facto Republican go to phrase. According to them, everything Democrats want to do will "cost jobs". Funny tho how the Republicans, who seem to be so knowledgeable as to how to go about creating jobs haven't DONE JACK SHIT to create any. All they've managed to do is make richer people richer.

The upside to this story is that any bill they pass will get rightfully killed in the Senate.

What has the world come to? Government simply does not and cannot create (net) jobs. They can tax money from one group of people and use that to hire government employees, but that doesn't create jobs, that just creates government jobs. You can vote to not destroy jobs i.e. not tax and regulate companies out of existence. So I'll be taking your "DONE JACK SHIT" as a compliment, thank you very much.

As for "make rich people richer", since when was wealth and profit a bad thing? The economy isn't a zero sum ga

Really dude, what fucking rock did you crawl out from? I'd say the 10+% of the population that's out of work, while corporations and their CEOs are raking in billion dollar profits is a perfect example of "one person's gain IS another's loss". Or are you trying to say that every time a factory gets moved overseas or an entire division gets outsourced to India all those lost jobs are a win/win for all parties involved? Haven't you been paying attention the last 30 years as the middle class has been systemati

The amount they pay is irrelevant. It's the percentage of income that's important. If I'm paying 25%-33% in taxes they should be paying at least that much if not more. But typically they pay less than 20%. Sorry, but that ain't right. Large corporations pay less than 5% of their profits in taxes. And they just keep getting richer and richer, and paying less and less.

And you know why 47% of people owed no federal income taxes in 2009? Because they were either broke or out of a job. The middle class is getting poorer and poorer, and once you factor in various credits your tax liability disappears. Of course this doesn't take into account how poorer people pay a significantly higher percentage of payroll taxes than everyone else, or how when you overtax people who already struggle to make ends meet they have zero income to contribute back to our economy. But yeah, let's just overlook that.

I don't mind that the poor pay less (or nothing), there is only so much you can wring from a stone. But when you're making billions and contributing a tiny percentage of that, and then COMPLAINING it's too much, sorry, that I can't tolerate. If you're going to use this country to become disgustingly wealthy at least have the common decency to pay it forward. But there is no decency in being rich. All they care about is getting richer, and they don't care who gets fucked as long as the money keeps rolling in. It's vile, and I really don't think We the People aren't going to put up with it for much longer.

Yes, that's the idea, but the reality is THEY DON'T. CEOs and upper management keep getting more. Shareholders get more. But the workers? They get very little. Stagnant wages, decreases in benefits, greater hours and responsibility for no extra pay, and so on. That is, of course, if they aren't fired and replaced by someone at 1/4 their salary. Or laid off because their job has been outsourced.These corporations are bringing in BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, yet they pay little to nothing in taxes and keep cutting aw

It's an easy out to ignore the other side when you're totally wrong. It's no coincidence the huge correlation between strongly religious people, replublican votes, and a lack of critical thinking. Why bother to listen/think when you can find someone else to agree with your preexisting confirmation bias.

Trickle down economics is probably the biggest lie ever successfully pulled off by the republicans.

Yes, isn't it funny that the Republicans are doing the usual ideological stuff like trying to gut environmental protections and protecting their fellow homophobes from teh g4yz0rs, but haven't come up with a plan to create jobs or get the economy on track?

I mean, the whole reason the Dems lost the last election was the economy.

Well, they need to hire a guy to put the traffic cones out on the information superhighway to reroute all traffic through their drive-through.

Sure, it'll kill business online for every single business out there that benefits even slightly from the Internet (100% of all business worldwide), but you gotta think of that one job. Or you won't get re-elected.

How they're going to get re-elected when all of their supporters find out that they're responsible for ruining all business worldwide? I have no idea.

Its just one of those moronic catch-phrases like "Political correctness gone mad" that lazy people trot out to avoid having to think carefully about a situation they would like to be black and white, but isn't.

Any time I hear one of these phrases, I pretty much hear "I have nothing intelligent to say, but try this jingo on for size!"

Others: "Nanny state interference", "un-American", "socialist". I'm sure you can come up with a bunch more.

from TFA: "If the Republican-controlled House approves the resolution, it would then move to the Senate, where Democrats hold the majority. The Senate is unlikely to pass the resolution."
summary fails to mention how this vote probably won't actually go anywhere.

Perhaps. But the folks who define science as witch-craft, speak in tongues and handle snakes (Mike Huckabee), think that if you're a good boy you get your own planet when you die (Mitt Romney), these people run things now.

Most of those pensions and benefits are the results of unions bargaining in good faith with the government. Employees generally are taking those options instead of a short term pay raise, or in lieu of any raises at all. It's not like they were getting the same pay as the private sector AND these fabulous benefits. Instead they are told that there are financial difficulties or money is tight or some other excuse, and they are promised compensation LATER for lower wages NOW.

States are going bankrupt because we have a population that believes that ANY increase in their income tax is communism. Especially if that increase has an effect on the income they DREAM of having some day.

FTA:
"The FCC lacks legal authority to pass the rules, and government intervention would hurt the Internet, said Representative Greg Walden, the subcommittee's chairman and an Oregon Republican. "The Internet works pretty well -- it's the government that doesn't," he said."
He's against government involvement. That I understand. But he's admitting that he, as a member of the government, doesn't really understand the problem. He's admitted to being the problem, so why should he have his way?

So... He shouldn't have his way, and you would make him be in charge of something he doesn't understand?

Why in blazes would we expect people in government to be omniscient? It won't be. That's why we decided it shouldn't be omnipotent either, except that something like 50% of people have completely forgotten about that idea.

Every story like this gives me even more motivation to get my degree. That way when the effects of all of this shitty legislation in favor of the super wealthy begins to really take effect I won't have a problem emigrating to another country.

Republicans represent the interests of very very wealthy people. They are against changes, innovations, new ideas and anything that benefits anyone who isn't in the club. Because from a rich person's viewpoint, everyone is out to grab some of what they have.
(oh, and I am not claiming that Democrats got it all right).

I'm sorry but there seems to be a discrepancy with regard to how representatives view NN. It is not a government regulation anymore than the first amendment 'regulates' that speech must be free. Likewise, NN 'regulates' that information must be unbiased. This notion of forced freedom as a form of regulation is probably the most far fetched form of 'regulation' that I have seen. But it should be clear that NN merely forces information to be unbiased. Regulation is a form of constriction on some greater pool. In other words, regulation selects a subset of options from a grand set. NN could not be regarded as regulation because it restricts corporate regulation. NN is, therefore, the antithesis of regulation.

The First Amendment doesn't say anything remotely like "all voices must be equally loud". That's what Net Neutrality does.

Uh, what? I don't really get your analogy with volume. Just as the First Amendment prevents the government from stopping or hindering someone from saying something (legal), net neutrality prevents ISPs from blocking or throttling traffic.

The First Amendment simply says that the federal government won't get involved in regulating speech....Which pretty much shoots down Net Neutrality right there, come to think of it.

You need to re-read the Constitution, and the definition of net neutrality. Net neutrality has nothing to do with regulating speech.

Is there a site or something that gives the vote records for subcommittees? If these articles are saying it was along party lines someone must have a list. If we can put names to decisions that's a lot more useful than blaming the entire party.

As soon as Verizion pays full market rate for the land their cables go over and under then we can talk.
Verizon and the others love it when government forces people to let them build under / across private property but they do not want to do anything in return for that access.

Similar to, if I want to take a toll road, which is less congested than the rest of the highway system.

I think the cause for concern is that without Net Neutrality you will no longer have any choice in the matter. If you wish to visit certain destinations the toll road is the only way. I guess it is like Pay-Per-View for the internet.

Similar to, if I want to take a toll road, which is less congested than the rest of the highway system.

What if said toll road only took you to cities that had paid to be connected to that road, or paid to block access to other cities in order to increase their own tourism/local business revenue? This is essentially what a lot of people are afraid is going to happen. Companies will have deals where they pay the internet provider to block/cripple your access to their competitor. Parts of the internet may be blocked off depending on who your provider is.

Let's take Comcast and Netflix. Comcast hates Netflix because Comcast is also a content provider. They want you to pay $6 to watch their on-demand movies. With Netflix I can watch tons of movies for $6, and Comcast has to carry the traffic. Without Net Neutrality, Comcast would tell Netflix "you use too much bandwidth. We're going to throttle you down until your movies are unwatchable unless you start paying us a fee. That fee will increase until we make as much money from people watching your movies as we would if they bought them from our service".

Netflix would have to increase prices until no one would pay, thus forcing them out of business and all you would be left with is Comcast, which then jacks up the prices for their on-demand movies.

You have freedom to use what you paid for within the terms of the usage agreement you've got with your provider. If they say "we may filter or traffic shape your traffic", then you're free to accept that or find some other carrier with preferable terms.

As for "built with your tax money". Not really. The network that was "built with your tax money" was a whole mess of 128kbps links that wouldn't even handle your iPad's traffic demands, let alone be a "network backbone".

You have freedom to use what you paid for within the terms of the usage agreement you've got with your provider. If they say "we may filter or traffic shape your traffic", then you're free to accept that or find some other carrier with preferable terms.

"What? You're not a slave! Why, You have the choice of being told what you can & can't do here, or at my neighbor's plantation -- Or you can die, see, you have plenty of freedom."

You're correct about having the choice to accept draconian licensing terms or not have the Internet at all... I can go with a different provider, but the only other provider in town has shitty service & licensing too. The "freedom" you describe is the freedom of a catch-22. I suppose that I'm not supposed to complain about, or support legislation that combats, the bad business practices of the telecoms that put me in this position?

BTW, It's more profitable for them to have shitty service, more on that in a few...

And besides, EVEN IF there were subsidies, etc., (as the other AC replier mentioned), blame your congress-critters for not negotiating better terms before they gave your money away. EVEN IF your local municipality is granting a monopoly, blame your local town-board for doing so and not insisting that the cable provider accommodate competitive content providers on the outside plant.

Yeah, no. Although I do despise the corrupt congressmen, I ultimately blame the LOBBYISTS that pay the congress critters -- The Lobbyists that are funded by the Telecoms -- for making it financially beneficial for the congress critters to agree to the shitty terms... (Boy, some folks are clueless about how it all really works -- Money talks, bullshit walks.)

I have done all that's in my power to fix this -- One of the things I do is support network neutrality, but the corporate lobbyists have far more money than I do to donate (hint: Still in a recession -- I can eat, or use my $$ to fight a loosing battle against more powerful opponents who already have a history with their pocket politicians (the ones I need on my side to win).

So, in all actuality, I don't have much freedom of choice, I can either accept the crappy service & terms or not have any at all (Isn't 0Mbps WORSE than any crappy amount they decide to give me?)

Now that the consumer ISP monopoly / duopolies are in place they are turning their sights on the content producers (who already pay for their own access to the web, BTW). One way that an ISP can double dip is to force a content company to co-locate servers and charge them rent. The claim is that the servers are closer to the end users and therefore you get faster connections.

This is very true, you do get better connections, but it costs the content providers more (then they drive my bill up? so it ends up costing me more?). However, the co-location wouldn't be necessary if Comcast would run their links at less saturation -- Level3 tried to give them more hardware so they could do just this (Improve the Comcast service for everyone!), but Comcast refused... Comcast demands Co-Location instead of fixing the problem (It is a problem, come 5:00, my Internet speeds drop drastically). Comcast is holding my connection speed hostage -- Even when I paid to get faster service, the Netflix stream still sucked, and it will continue to suck unless Netflix/Level3 pays the ransom and co-locates servers with Comcast.

During the middle of the day my Netflix streaming on Comcast works almost acceptably... But when peak usage times hit, the streaming stutters all to hell because Comcast is dropping my Netflix packets (I pay both Comcast and Netflix to access them).

How does NN fit in? Well, if Comcast wasn't allowed to lower my Netflix traffic QoS so much (esp lower than their own competing Video service's priority) then their own Video delivery service would have to suck more... Comcast would have to fix the damn problem and

I have to admit I don't understand the business model that allows the internet to work.

Damn straight you don't. It's good that you know your own limitations, but you charge ahead blindly and make statements that... well... you wouldn't make if you did understand.

Why did the government do that and interfere with the marketplace.

Because there was no marketplace. It did not exist. Where there was just phone lines, the government funded some research to develop it into automated message forwarding sort of thing that grew up into the Internet. They didn't interfere, because there was nothing there to interfere with. Some eggheads had some ideas that something co